Video editing technology is changing dramatically. With the introduction of new and faster Computers, rudimentary A-B roll editing systems are rapidly being surpassed by more powerful and more flexible computer-based digital desktop editing systems.
Some principal companies involved in this emerging technology are Adobe Systems, Apple Computer, Video Toaster and Silicon Graphics. In particular, Silicon Graphics sell pre-configured hardware/software systems to end users for animation and video editing, while Apple Computer sells non-configured hardware (with system software, i.e. QuickTime.TM.) designed for general use, as in their new AV.TM. series of computers. The Video Toaster.TM. is an Amiga.RTM.-based editing hardware and software platform. Adobe Systems sells Adobe Premier.TM., a software program that runs on the Apple Macintosh.RTM. (and just recently the IBM.RTM. PC), that gives users the ability to do non-linear post-production editing of video.
Although Adobe Premier.TM. has competing products like Avid's VideoShop.RTM., Adobe clearly dominates the marketplace with Premier.TM.. Premier.TM., however, has several fundamental limitations that arise from the user interface and the consequences of the choice of that user interface. Premier.TM. uses a time-based (or timeline-based) storyboard analogy for its user interface, which makes any time-sensitive splices or edits difficult to define and implement. Some broadly-stated weaknesses of the user interface include the following:
1. the user is forced to perform unnecessary and time-consuming computations repeatedly to adjust timing;
2. sequential edits, or edits of other edits (compound edits), are extremely cumbersome to perform;
3. prior edits cannot be adjusted without catastrophic effects on later or dependent edits; and
4. the user interface is not intuitive because it does not match the paradigm of the task of editing.
The first and second problems have been addressed by VideoFusion's VideoFusion.TM., and by Avid's Diva VideoShop.RTM., which allow direct manipulation of effect modules, but the user interfaces of these products force them to eliminate true sequential time-based editing.
The third problem has been addressed with a patch solution by Digital F/X of Mountain View, Calif. Their product, Hitchcock.TM., allows a user to add locking edit points and stationary markers to the edit worksheet. These controls, however, complicate the storyboard user interface analogy.
The fourth problem is a subjective insight based on detailed studies and research of other user interface design. Such studies have shown that users view editing of audiovisual data in terms of the transformations that the data make through an editing process. The storyboard, timeline paradigm of audiovisual data, while useful for storytelling purposes, does not lend itself to an intuitive understanding of the editing paradigm.
Thus, what is needed in the art is a graphical environment allowing .editing of audiovisual data that draws on a user's intuitive understanding of the editing process, thereby providing a powerful and flexible means by which to edit such data.